They trained her with the floating silver wand... a variant of the silver cane she carried much later. The box she carried constantly at her belt was the same translator she carried now. They made her wear it long after she knew the language. They thought her accent ugly.
It grated on her to think that they regarded her as a social inferior. Later she changed her mind. They regarded her as a house pet, a prized property that could do tricks.
With the children she watched shows put on by other groups of children. Some they attended live. Others were broadcast as three-dimensional illusions, like holovision sets arbitrarily large. Once they floated in interplanetary space for hours, and Mirelly-Lyra wondered at the grim intensity with which Choss's Girls watched a dull and repetitious planetarium show. She understood their rapt concentration later, during the voting.
But most of the shows were bids for prestige. Some of the bulky floating widgets that followed her around were cameras and emotional sensors. Mirelly-Lyra was another show. Because of her, the prestige of Choss's group was high.
Her medicines had retarded, but not prevented, menopause. The change in her body was a near-killing blow to Mirelly-Lyra's faith in herself. She was a trained seal, and aging. One thing kept her going. Somewhere out there was dictator immortality.
At first she welcomed the chance to talk to the Girls. But that was the trouble: Mirelly-Lyra did all the talking. Her own questions were not answered. Questions the Girls put to her she was expected to answer in full. If she didn't lecture at length they became annoyed.
Then, once, she found Choss in an indulgent mood.
"Choss told me that the dictators took care of their own medical problems," said Mirelly-Lyra. "The dictators were ruled by the Boys, who made shows with them and saw to it that chemicals in their food kept them from having children. I think Choss was jealous that the Boys would not let Girls play with the dictators. I'm telling this badly," she said suddenly. "These Girls were all older than I. They were decadent aristocrats, not children."
"Yeah. I get the impression the Girls and the Boys stayed apart."
"Yeah, and that made it difficult for me. The Boys and Girls, they didn't have sex to hold them together. They were two separate States on Earth, each with its territory and its rights. They must have been separate for a long time. Choss said that the Girls ruled the sky and the Boys ruled the dictators. I would have to go to the Boys to find out about dictator immortality."
"The Girls ruled the sky?" That sounded like nonsense, but...
"Choss said so. I think it was true, Corbel. I saw them vote not to move the Earth! We watched an astronomical light show, and then there were hours of discussion, and they voted!
"But I was more concerned with dictator immortality. Choss promised to learn what I wanted from the Boys. I was valuable to them, Corbel. They gained prestige from the stories I told and the shows they made about me." Anger crackled in the translator's voice as Mirelly-Lyra relived evil memories. "They were forever amused by what I did not know. Other groups of Girls began reviving other prisoners. After many years I decided that Choss had done nothing to get me what I wanted. I would have to reach the Boys."
"It figures."
"What?"
"Choss couldn't go to the Boys. They'd claim you as a dictator. Their property."
"I... never thought of that. I was a fool."
"Go on."
"The Boys held the land masses of the southern hemisphere. They had built heated domes in the south polar continent. They held two other continents and many islands. But the Girls ruled more useful land, and more power too, if they really ruled the sky. I knew that the Earth had been moved. There were times when Jupiter shone so brilliantly that one could see the banding and pick out the moons. I was afraid of these Girls. I was trying to find a safe way to steal an aircraft, but I waited too long.
"One day Choss told me that they were tired of me, that I must go back in zero-time. I was no longer a new thing. I took a plane that night. They let me fly a long way before they brought me back with the autopilot. I learned that they had made a show of my escape."
"Fun people, your Girls. They put you back in the box?"
"Yes. They let me keep my translator. It was the only thing they did for me. Later they lowered two Boys they had caught during a fight. The Girls had given them soul whips," she said with grim amusement, "and I was the only one who could talk to them."
"Soul whip?"
"I used one to make you docile. It didn't work. A few more applications may help."
"Finish your story."
"We waited a long time. Nobody came to free us. Finally the machinery stopped. Everything was killing-hot. The Boys ruled us with the soul whip, and I was their translator, but there was little cooperation. Some of us lived to reach the southernmost continent. There they were captured by Boys, all but me. I fled back across the water alone.
"It was a long time before I learned enough to feel myself safe. I had to learn what could be eaten, what foods would not spoil, how to hide from storms: all things you will have to learn, too. I was old when I could begin searching again. For ten years I searched for dictator immortality through the ruins the Boys and Girls left me. Then I emptied out my small zero-time storage place and went into it to wait for... you."
"Nice try."
"When you are young again, then mock me!"
"I don't expect that will happen."
"We can't give up."
Corbell laughed. "I can give up. I guess I don't believe in your dictator immortality. Have you ever seen anyone get young?"
"No, but-"
"Do you even know what makes people get old? Fires don't burn backward, lady."
"I am not a doctor. I only know what anyone knows. Inert molecules gather in the cells to clog them, like... like silt and garbage and the poisons of industry gather in a great inland sea, until the sea becomes a great inland swamp. The cells become less... active. Some die. One day there are too few active cells living too slowly. Other inert matter accumulates to block the veins and arteries... but I have medicines to dissolve them."
"Cholesterol, sure. But getting the dead stuff out of a living cell without killing it would be something else again. I think you were hoaxed," said Corbell. "Choss and her friends acted like nasty children. Why not your Boy lawyer too? Remember, you asked the Girls. They didn't raise the subject."
"But why?"
"Oh, just to see what you'd-"
"No!"
"Everyone dies. Your lawyer's dead. Choss is dead. Even civilizations die. There was a civilization here that could move the Earth. Now there's nothing."
After a longish silence came the calm voice of the translating box. "There are Boys where you're going. I tried to talk to them once. They know nothing of dictator immortality."
"Do they know what happened to civilization?"
"You said it yourself. There were two States on Earth. They must have fought."
"It could have happened." War between the sexes had always seemed silly to Corbell. Too much fraternizing with the enemy, haha. But if sex didn't hold them together?
"The Boys know nothing," she repeated. "Perhaps there was never dictator immortality in the south polar continent."